LETTER |
To the Editor
Bravo for Mike Johnson’s telling it like it is or seems to be, Ms. Bauernschmidt’s valiant but unconvincing, rebuttal, notwithstanding. Like Mike Johnson, I’m also a member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. The evidence simply isn’t there for the validity of religion (any of the scores of faiths).
As Ms. B points out, there are endless examples of junk science by corporations
trying to sell us things we don’t need along with all sorts of secular injustices.
Not all, to be sure, but most of our planet’s former and current conflicts are
religion generated. Not only are there constant inter conflicts among the thousands
of the world’s religions, but the intra battles within particular sects (Christians
for example) really get vicious. Does God really care about our wearing the
ornate robes demanded by some sects, the silly skull caps required by another
or the awful underwear demanded by yet another. Come on.
Ms. B may indeed have a soul, but no surgeon has ever found one.
“Give me the youth until they are six, eight or whatever and they are ours
forever,” is a common religion truism. But when we grow up and realize that
we’ve only been subjected to another fairy tale, the trouble begins. It’s no
great stretch to label such “brainwashing’ as child abuse. For example, I was
baptized (somebody else’s decision) as an Episcopalian (American version of
the Church of England). Presumably that’s going to get me into Heaven although
I had nothing, whatsoever, to do with it. But then we grow up to discover it’s
nonsense, another fairy tale leaving countless ones to carry that baggage for
the rest of their lives.
No one has ever presented an iota of evidence that there’s a God or Supreme
Being. Never mind all the golden plates and other “proofs” that religious founders
base their beliefs upon, but somehow always get lost afterwards.
Soul or not, I have my very own religion. I am the only member and I’m not
recruiting. I wish Ms. B. the very best luck with hers.